


a lingering drought

by skatzaa



Category: The Lost Man - Jane Harper
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Not Beta Read, Pining, Pre-Relationship, Since this is the first tag for the book I want to clarify that this isn't incest, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-17
Updated: 2019-11-17
Packaged: 2021-02-07 15:10:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21460090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skatzaa/pseuds/skatzaa
Summary: It was nearly dark when Nathan heard the tell tale rattle of a car making its way down the pathetic track he called a driveway, when he was feeling generous. Sundown came early this time of year, the light barely appearing, it felt like, before it slipped away again out past the desert dunes. Either his unexpected visitor had mistimed it, and would be stuck with Nathan’s pitiful excuse for hospitality for the night, or they had timed it exactly right.
Relationships: Cameron Bright/Ilsa Bright, pre-Ilsa Bright/Nathan Bright
Kudos: 3





	a lingering drought

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, can't believe I've become that person who posts the first fic in a fandom tag. So I'm not expecting to see much response here, but if you've found my little fic, welcome!
> 
> To clarify on the tags: Ilsa is Cameron's wife, Cameron is Nathan's brother. So this isn't incest, even though they all have the same last names. It's just a messy situation. (If you haven't read the book, I'm not totally sure what you're doing here, but the short of it is: Nathan and Ilsa were interested in each other first, but he wasn't able to see her because of ~angsty backstory building reasons~, and that's when Cameron swooped in. Ilsa hadn't known Cameron was Nathan's brother until much later in the relationship.)
> 
> My apologies for any mistakes in dialect; I did my best, but my only real exposure to Australia is Jane Harper's books and like. TV, lol.

It was nearly dark when Nathan heard the tell tale rattle of a car making its way down the pathetic track he called a driveway, when he was feeling generous. Sundown came early this time of year, the light barely appearing, it felt like, before it slipped away again out past the desert dunes. Either his unexpected visitor had mistimed it, and would be stuck with Nathan’s pitiful excuse for hospitality for the night, or they had timed it exactly right.

From his customary nightly spot sprawled on the couch, beer in one hand, Nathan turned his head. He couldn’t see much of the drive out the window from this angle—just enough that he caught a glimpse of the top of a tall white Land Cruiser. There weren’t many of those in Balamara, and of the people who drove them, there was only one who would consider visiting Nathan these days.

He tilted his head back to fully lean against the arm of the couch, and resumed his previously planned activity for the night: staring at the ceiling. He wanted bugger all to do with Cam right now, especially after the fiasco that was meant to be a fencing repair trip last month. Cam could sleep in his boot all night, for all Nathan cared.

The rattling stopped and the engine shut off, leaving Nathan to realize he’d heard it only in its absence. He wasn’t going to get up. Screw Cam, and screw whatever had made him drive the full three hours between their houses. Why hadn’t he just radioed Nathan like everyone else who bothered to contact him, as few and far between as they were?

The thought made Nathan pause, beer partway to his mouth, and he glanced over to the radio propped up on the table, dark and silent. He honestly couldn’t remember the last time he’d switched it on. Sometime last week? Maybe. He hadn’t turned on the one in his car in nearly as long. It just didn’t seem like there was much of a point, these days. Nearly five years from the day he’d left Keith on the side of the road, and still Balamara kept its back turned to him.

From her spot on the floor, Kelly whined. Nathan looked over at the dog and saw the forward tilt of her ears and the curious cock to her head.

Kelly had never taken to Cam, though she and Duffy, Cam’s own dog, were from the same litter. It had annoyed Cam, who always had to be the most liked person in the room, to no end, and it had amused Bub nearly as much. Kelly always seemed to have a sixth sense about when Cam was around; when he was, she never reacted like  _ that _ .

Which meant, Nathan realized a half second after the knock came at the door, tentative and far too hesitant to be his brother, that it  _ wasn’t _ Cam.

He pushed himself off the couch with a low groan, body still sore from the battle he had only technically won with that calf that had gotten itself tangled in some wire the day before. It had been lucky for the calf—and Nathan’s profits—that he’d stumbled across it when he did, before it hurt itself or ruined too much of his fencing. But it was hard work, holding a calf still enough and cutting it free all on his own, and his body was letting him know, quite loudly, that he wasn’t as young as he used to be.

Discarding the beer can on the old crate that served as his end table, Nathan stood. He was clearly too slow for the person on the other side of his door, because they knocked again, fainter this time. And lower to the ground.

Nathan strode across the room, stepping over Kelly on his way, and opened the door.

Ilsa smiled back at him from a face that was a mess of fresh, purple bruising. The motion resplit her lip, and Nathan, struck dumb, watched as she touched the tip of her tongue to the spot and winced.

“Hi Nathan,” Ilsa said, her voice rough from tears. “Won’t you let us in?”

And it was  _ us _ , Nathan saw belatedly, moving out of the doorway to let her in. Ilsa had both her daughters with her—Sophie, who had only just turned four and looked to be on the verge of tears herself as she clutched her mother’s hand, and little Lois, still young enough to be held but at that age where the more precocious children started walking.

Xander—displaying that quiet, careful way he still had quite early on—hadn’t been one of them. In fact, it had taken him so long to walk that Jackie, with all the hysteria of a new parent far out of their depth, had started to talk about appointments in Brisbane or, God forbid, Sydney, to meet with this expert or that one. Nathan hadn’t been worried about Xander’s slower pace at all—Bub, he’d remembered, had had a similar problem and no one had fretted over it at the time—and he’d made the mistake of saying as much to his wife.

That had been another big fight, with Xander crying in the next room, and it had resulted in Jackie staying with her parents for several days with Nathan tried to figure out how to run a farm with an infant strapped to his chest. He’d already lost track, at that point, of which fight it had been.

Nathan pulled himself back to the present and checked for Cam, half expecting him to be unloading bags from the car’s boot or stamping his way up the drive, waiting to be in ear shot before he started complaining about some other aspect of Nathan’s sad existence. But there was no one else out there. 

He closed the door, careful not to slam it, but not before Kelly darted out from between his legs and into the open air. He considered calling her back, but knew she wouldn’t go far without him. Rather, he turned back to Ilsa. She looked out of place in his living room, with her daughters held close. Nathan tried to remember the last time she’d been here, and came up empty. He didn’t know if she had ever been here; if she had, it certainly hadn/t been without Cam hovering a step behind her.

Without warning, Sophie began to cry. 

Ilsa sighed and beckoned Nathan toward her with a jerk of her head. When he was close enough, she pulled her elbow out from her body, an all too familiar gesture that meant  _ I need both of my hands, here, take the baby. _ After a slight hesitation, he complied. Ilsa knelt in front of her youngest daughter and began speaking in a low, soothing tone, similar to someone who’s trying to convince a skittish horse or cow not to spook and run off.

Nathan looked down at baby Lois in his arms and carefully tucked her closer to his chest. She was big, much bigger than he remembered her being, and no wonder. He hadn’t seen her in, what… six months? Maybe even nine. He hadn’t been present for her birth, of course; the trip to Brisbane would’ve been too time consuming and expensive, even without it falling during one of the biggest musterings of the season. He didn’t even think Cam had been there.

Instead, it had been Liz who’d flown with Ilsa in the Atherton’s hired plane, borrowed from the neighboring property after a quick conversation over the radio, which had also alerted Cam, Harry, and Bub what was going on, even if they hadn’t been able to do much about it at the time. Nathan hadn’t heard about it until after the fact. He’d had his radio turned off, as he had started to do more and more over the past year and a half or so. 

Lois fussed sleepily in his arms and he bounced her up and down, a response so instinctive he had begun to do so even before he had finished processing the noises she was making. The last time he’d been over to the family home had been for Christmas, he realized. It was no wonder she was so much bigger than he remembered.

Nathan kept his gaze trained on the baby, but that didn’t stop him from catching snatches of what Ilsa was telling her older daughter. He didn’t like the picture that was forming in his mind, between the bruises, Cameron’s Land Cruiser out in the drive, and the number of times Sophie was asking about Daddy. Lots of kids might ask for their dad when they took a trip to a strange place without him, but usually they didn’t sound so  _ scared. _ The tone made Nathan’s heart squeeze, because he recognized it, mostly from Bub’s childhood. Back when he was just about the same age as Sophie, in fact.

Finally, Ilsa scooped her daughter up into her arms and settled her against her hip, one hand smoothing over her hair as mindlessly as Nathan had rocked Lois moments before. Sophie hid her face in her mother’s shoulder as Ilsa stepped closer to Nathan.

He let his eyes wander across her face, taking in the details of the bruises he had missed before. They were another thing he recognized; something that would have gone unacknowledged and unspoken in his house growing up. But Carl had never bruised Liz or the boys quite so badly, and never all at once.

“I’m sorry to barge in on you like this,” Ilsa was saying, her voice still thin from tears. Sophie sniffled behind her hair. Ilsa’s voice lowered further, and was tinged with something a little too close to shame for Nathan’s liking.“I promised myself I would never put you in this situation, but Cam went… too far today.”

“You can always come here.” The words were out before Nathan had considered speaking, and he nearly winced at the awkward bluntness in his tone. He tried again. “I mean, I don’t mind. I’m glad you came, if you needed to.”

Ilsa looked down at Sophie, and then Lois, cradled securely against Nathan’s chest. She didn’t meet Nathan’s eyes.

“Things have been getting worse,” she said, and Nathan could tell that each word cost her a small bit of her pride. The outback was funny like that; you couldn’t survive here if you weren’t tough, but often, the red sands and merciless sun turned that toughness into something unwieldy to the point of being brittle and too easily cracked. Ilsa continued, “For a while now. But this morning…”

Nathan almost reached out to steady her, before the warm, heavy weight of Lois reminded him that he couldn’t. For more reasons than just holding a baby, too, that was for certain. He said, “You don’t have to tell me.”

Ilsa nodded, but it had a far away quality to it that made him think she hadn’t really heard him after all. Her eyes were unfocused now, and she rocked slightly where she stood, perhaps in an attempt to soothe Sophie, or herself.

He wondered how long she had wanted to say something like this for. Probably a long time. Too long.

She had said something, Ilsa told him eventually. She couldn’t remember what it was, but it had set Cam off. He’d already been more stressed than usual lately, what with the musterings and the issues with one of the herds, and something about whatever it was she had said had been some final straw in Cam’s mind. He had tried to beat her for it.

That wasn’t unusual. Hitting her face was, Ilsa said, because Cam didn’t like to be reminded of what he’d done when he finally calmed down, and he didn’t want any questions to come up with Liz or Harry or any of the backpackers they may have hired on to work for them. But he wasn’t above smacking her with an open palm or taking a belt to her back when he felt she’d disrespected him somehow.

She might not have done anything, might have taken the beating like she normally did, if he hadn’t done it in front of Sophie. But as soon as Cam had lifted a fist to Ilsa, Sophie had darted out from the closet where she’d been searching for a pair of shoes for Ilsa and screamed at him—and Cam had turned towards his daughter with his fist still raised.

“I went after him,” Ilsa admitted. It was how she’d ended up with the bruising on her face; Cam was a strong man in the prime of his life, and Ilsa was fit, but her husband outweighed her by eighty kilos at least. But in the end, a mother’s love for her daughter had won out over Cameron’s rage. Ilsa had shoved him into the great big armoire they’d inherited from Liz and Carl, and Cam had cracked his head against it and gone down hard.

“I didn’t check to see if he was okay, or even if he was still breathing. I just grabbed the girls and ran out of the house.” She looked up at him, finally, with beseeching eyes, begging him to understand. Understand what, Nathan wasn’t sure. “Bub’s out with Harry in the northern parcels today, so I packed the girls up in Cam’s car and drove straight here. That way Cam couldn’t follow us.”

The timing was a bit off—if she had left mid-morning, or even close to noon, why was she only getting to Nathan’s place now?—but he didn’t question her. Instead, he asked, “Why not take your car?”

Or talk to Liz or Harry, or, hell, even Bub. But even as he thought it, he knew immediately why she hadn’t. Liz wouldn’t understand why Ilsa couldn’t endure it, for the sake of her family. Like Liz had, though she probably wouldn’t say as much. Harry might’ve been receptive, but he was equally as likely to unlock the gun cupboard immediately afterward and fix the problem himself. Bub… Nathan was less sure what Bub would do, but it wouldn’t be helpful. Regardless, the two of them were reachable only by radio today, and this wasn’t the sort of thing you wanted to talk about on an open frequency where anyone could hear.

“It doesn’t always work properly,” Ilsa said, tears creeping back into her voice. “I think Cam messes with it, sometimes, so it’s just unreliable enough that he knows I won’t be able to trust it.”

She collapsed backward without looking, and thankfully ended up on the couch rather than the floor. Turning her face towards Sophie, Ilsa pressed her face against her daughter’s blonde hair. She said, more to herself than to Nathan, “I don’t even have the girls’ birth certificates or my passport. I just knew I had to get away.”

Nathan sat beside her and shifted Lois to one arm so he could wrap the other around Ilsa’s shoulders, careful not to hurt Sophie’s arms where they clung to Ilsa’s neck. She trembled against him, tears silently sliding down her cheeks, and then turned into his shoulder, ever careful of her daughters even as she sought comfort for herself.

He was out of his depth, without a doubt. It had been a long, long time since anyone had turned to him for comfort; even before things had gotten rocky with Jackie, she had been just as likely to drive to her parents to see her mother as she was to ask Nathan for help.

Maybe that had been another sign, in hindsight.

And Xander, of course, had cried on Nathan’s shoulders plenty of times as a child, but it had been years since Nathan had seen him often enough to be there for those moments. Anyway, he was getting to the age now when he didn’t want anyone to see him cry, let alone his dad.

Ilsa was still trembling against him, and Lois was starting to fuss in reaction to her mother’s distress, so Nathan shushed and rocked them both as best he could on the couch. Lois calmed down relatively quickly. Ilsa didn’t.

“You can stay here as long as you need to,” Nathan found himself saying. This was why he had never spent much time around her; he couldn’t seem to control his mouth for more than a few minutes at a time when she was in the room. But he wouldn’t kick her out, and he couldn’t exactly run away in his own home. If she needed to be here, he would let her, and he would find a way to not make things any more uncomfortable than necessary. 

It was a big offer, and they both knew it. Not only because Nathan would have to rework his supply levels to accommodate three extra people, but also because he just wasn’t used to having other people around, period. He didn’t think he would handle the transition from just him and Kelly to a full house with two little ones underfoot very well, but he didn’t regret offering.

Ilsa pulled back and looked at him, her bloodshot blue eyes standing out starkly against the bruises. She said, “Cam will think to come here eventually.”

Sooner than later, too, if Nathan knew his brother at all. Cam was smart, even when he was being a bloody bully, smart enough to know that Nathan still harbored more than a small flame for Ilsa, even after all these years. He would figure out where she was more quickly than Ilsa realized.

“I’ll deal with him when it comes to that,” Nathan said, and meant it. Carl had been bad enough when they were kids. Nathan had been too afraid of him to do anything, even after he was grown, but Cam was a different story. Nathan could handle Cam, if it came to that. He had done it before. “I mean it, Ilsa. You and the girls can stay here as long as you want, and we’ll figure out the rest as we need to.”

He bit his tongue, too late. Ilsa was looking at him again with her piercing gaze, and he knew she hadn’t missed the way  _ need _ had shifted into  _ want _ without him exactly meaning for it to. 

She leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his cheek, light enough that it wouldn’t disturb her split lip. Nathan could barely feel it on his skin, but still it seared its way through him. Maybe Glenn had been right, the last time he and Nathan talked; maybe Nathan  _ should  _ get out a bit more, if a simple kiss on the cheek could leave him feeling so unsteady.

“Thank you,” Ilsa was saying to him. She shifted her shoulder almost imperceptibly, bringing Sophie to his attention. The little girl had fallen asleep at some point. “I had to intrude, but maybe I could put her to bed? She’ll probably need me to stay with her, in case she wakes up and gets scared, being in a new place…”

“Of course,” Nathan said. None of the kids who grew up out in the outback saw a lot of new places, at least not until they went off to school. And Sophie’s day didn’t need to be anymore stressful; there would be plenty of time to talk to Ilsa later. “I might still have Xander’s old crib around here somewhere. Let me show you to the guest bed and I can go look for it.” He glanced out the window at the rapidly fading light. “And then it’ll be lights out, I’d guess. We can work out the rest in the morning.”

“Thank you,” Ilsa said again. Nathan steadied her with his free arm as she stood, and she gave him another smile that made her wince. He showed her to the guest room; thankfully, he had done the laundry earlier that week, so the sheets on the bed wouldn’t be too musty. Ilsa laid Sophie down on the bed and took Lois from his arms; Nathan tried not to think too hard on whether her touch had lingered at all.

He had to step over Kelly on his way out of the house, nearly tripping over her as she darted through the open doorway. The crib would likely be out in the old storage shed, where a lot of the bad memories had ended up after the divorce. Before that, it had been used for some of Xander’s things as he outgrew them.

Nathan would dig out the crib, if it was still here. If not, he’d grab some of the pillows from his room for Ilsa to keep Lois safe for the night. Then it would be lights out, unless the house got too cold at night for the girls; he could afford to keep the generator running for one night, if need be. And in the morning, he and Ilsa would have to have a long conversation, about a lot of things.

He didn’t expect it to be comfortable in the slightest, but still, somehow, he found he was looking forward to it.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to anyone who might have read this! This can mostly stand alone, and I didn't want it to die a slow death in a WIP folder, but I may return to it and add more in the future, if inspiration strikes. Nathan is my wonderful, repressed, touch-starved son, and I love him so much.
> 
> Comments and kudos are always appreciated.
> 
> Read on,  
Skats


End file.
